PGOLD Opens 101st Store in Benguet, the 1st New Store in 2012
Manila–(PHStocks)–Puregold Price Club Inc. (PSE: PGOLD) opens today its first new store in 2012 in La Trinidad, Benguet. This store, PGOLD’s 101st store and a hypermarket, is located at Barangay Balili, La Trinidad, Benguet. PGOLD plans to open 25 new stores in 2012.
Puregold hypermarket in La Trinidad, Benguet is the farthest store location north of Metro Manila. Previous to this store opening, the farthest store location in the north is the Puregold hypermarket in the City of Baguio.
La Trinidad, the capital town of Benguet and known as the Rose Capital of the Philippines, is 256km north of Metro Manila. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Tublay, on the south by the City of Baguio, on the west by the municipalities of Sablan and Tuba. La Trinidad is relatively the most developed municipality in the province of Benguet because of its proximity to the City of Baguio. It is the gateway of the southern lowlands into the Cordillera Region. Due to its advanced development, La Trinidad is considered as one of the Central Business Districts of Benguet.
As of December 31, 2011, PGOLD has 100 stores after opening 38 new stores in the said year. These stores are distributed as follows into the following PGOLD store formats: 61 of hypermarkets, 28 of supermarkets (Puregold Jr.) and 11 of discounters (Puregold Extra). As to locations, 53 stores are in Metro Manila, 16 are in north of Metro Manila and 31 are in south of Metro Manila. PGOLD plans to double the number of its stores by 2015; as it saturates further into the untapped Metro Manila and the Luzon areas and as it expands into the Visayas and Mindanao.
The farthest store locations south of Metro Manila are in the Bicol region. Puregold hypermarket in Legaspi City, Albay opened on November 23, 2011. The second store in the Bicol region, Puregold hypermarket in Naga, Camarines Sur, opened on November 24, 2011.
Since PGOLD’s listing in the Philippine Stock Exchange on October 5, 2011, PGOLD shares enjoyed buoyant trading among local and foreign investors. PGOLD shares closed at PhP18.36 per share on January 13, 2012, compared to PGOLD’s IPO price of PhP12.50 per share. On January 12, 2012, PGOLD posted the current intra-day trading-high of PhP19.48 per share in its almost 4 months of being a listed company.